[Let me begin this post with a bit of a disclaimer. My husband is a retired veteran of the Air Force — 20+ years — before I knew him, but that doesn’t diminish my pride in the fact that he served our country. His son and our daughter in law are both career Air Force, too, and our other daughter-in-law just completed eight years in the Air Force. So yes, we are huge supporters of our American soldiers.]

The story I’m about to tell you holds several interests and outrages and raises some important questions:

1. Since when is a soldier not a citizen first?

2. How is it that an accurate diagnosis could turn into a MISdiagnosis 10 years later?

This story is told on CBS’s evening news — about a young soldier, Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez, who joined the Marines in 1997. During his induction physical, the doctor noted a mole and called it a melanoma on Carmelo’s records. But nothing was said to Carmelo, and the paperwork was filed. Carmelo went through training, has spent these ensuing years in the Marines, and was deployed to Iraq…

…. where last year, the mole began to get inflamed and filled with pus…. so the sargeant checked in with the military doctor. He was told it was a wart, and to “wait and see.”

Sargeant Carmelo Rodriguez died 18 months later, of melanoma.

Turns out, according to the military itself, that there are “several hundred” cases of misdiagnosis of medical problems for soldiers in Iraq each year. Others have died from misdiagnosis and medical mistakes, too.

And I SO UNDERSTAND THE OUTRAGE! Because I’ve been there — misdiagnosed and floundering. There are tens of thousands of us — but most of us aren’t soldiers…

So here is OUTRAGE #2: Because Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez was misdiagnosed by a military doctor, his family has no legal recourse. None Nada. A law passed in 1950, called the Ferris Doctrine, removes that right for soldiers, even when injured by the actions of a military doctor.

I’ve watched and heard plenty of controversy from those who are either upset, or elated, that ABC will be airing an episode of its new TV show, Eli Stone, tomorrow night.

Eli Stone is a lawyer who defends a lawsuit imposed by a family who believes that a vaccination caused their child to develop autism.

From the American Association of Pediatrics which believes (like the CDC, the IOM and other government and mainstream groups) that vaccines do NOT cause autism) to groups of parents and professionals who believe vaccines are at the root of autism…. they are riled up and making plenty of noise.

The AAP wrote a letter to ABC insisting the episode not be aired. The parent-group that shares the autism-vaccine correlation beliefs insists it be shown.

And my take on the controversy? It’s completely unrelated to autism, vaccinations or anything related to health or medicine….

Regular readers of this blog know that my mother suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease. That means our entire family suffers from the “long good-bye.” My dad, in particular, has been a saint of a caregiver, but he has watched the love of his life descend into the hell that strips them both of their quality of life.

As I read the story, I learned that an 81 year old gentleman with well-documented Alzheimer’s disease had been given a shot of Enbrel (a drug approved only for arthritis) directly into his neck, and within 10 minutes he regained a great deal of his cognitive capacity. Six months later, with additional shots, he has retained this improved memory. His family, as we can only imagine, was ecstatic.

But, of course, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. So I got in touch with my Alzheimer’s point person, Dr. Sharon Brangman, a geriatrician and aging expert. I was able to interview her yesterday for my radio show. The interview will be aired this weekend.

Bottom line? It’s always wise to look behind headlines of studies — and this one is a good example. While Dr. Brangman does believe that there are seeds of good news here, there are a number of questions, too. Here are a few of them — enough to raise an eyebrow:

This test was done on only one person. The injection has been attempted with others, and presumably they improved, too. But many, many more people would need to show similar improvement to suggest this is a step forward for Alzheimer’s patients in general.

The journal which published the account of the experiment is the Journal of Neuroinflammation which is so small, Dr. Brangman had not heard of it. She questioned why something seemingly so huge was not published in a larger, better known professional journal, such as the New England Journal of Medicine.

The chief researcher owns stock in the company that makes Enbrel, and is trying to patent the way the injection is administered.

Bottom line? The actual science behind the idea of reducing inflammation is bonafide — and it’s an exciting approach to attacking the inflammation of the brain, which may improve cognitive function in many others.

Is it something we’ll begin to see more information about? Most probably.

Is it a cure for Alzheimer’s? Probably not a cure, but perhaps a new approach to treating the symptoms of dementia and worth keeping an eye on.

Wise patients understand that medical news can yield all kinds of information, but reading behind the headlines provides much more information about their validity and whether or not they apply to our own medical problems or those of our loved ones.